On Sunday, Oct. 18, Russian and Israeli air force headquarters near Latakia n Syria and Tel Aviv began practicing procedures for using the hot line they established last week to coordinate their operations in Syrian skies. debkafile: Arab-speaking flight controllers will no doubt man the Russian end of the hot line at Al-Hmeineem, while US and other Western air controllers will join Israeli officers at the Tel Aviv end to coordinate their own flights over Syria with the Russian command.

President Obama took some tough steps to weaken the Iranian front ahead of the direct US-Iranian nuclear talks beginning December 1. The latest is a March deadline for results. But US military strength is also lined up just in case face-to-face with Iran leads nowhere. Most significantly, in September, the Pentagon and the US Army completed the deployment of US military strength in strike position and intensified military pressure on the Assad regime.

Defense minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz decided Wednesday, Oct. 24, to shift to the Gaza sector most of the personnel and anti-missile batteries taking part in the joint Israeli-US war game and home front exercise. This came after Palestinians in Gaza hammered Israeli civilian locations with 60 rockets in just a few hours. debkafile: IDF chiefs suspect the Hamas assault is the opening shot of a major offensive which Hizballah may be preparing to join. The US troop increment's fate is yet to be determined.

Instead of Netanyahu attacking Iran, Khamenei has developed a preemptive strategy for harassing Israel without going far enough to provoke an Israel counter-attack. The stealth drone Iran sent over Israel was not only invisible to Israel but also to US Navy and military radar in the region.

A new US battle strategy against Iran (ASB) hinges on tightly coordinated air, land, sea, undersea, space and cyberspace capabilities for defeating closure of the (Hormuz) strait, cyber attack, mines, cruise and ballistic missiles. US and Israeli Air Forces, Navies and their special forces are operating on the ABS concept after an Israeli drill which ended in its navy setting up a dense defensive line against enemy sea assault by unconventional weapons. Monday, a large US amphibious marine vessel anchored in Jedda.

A successful joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel's Arrow 2 Block 4 ballistic missile defense systems and, most importantly, of their radar systems: the two US AN/TPY-2 X-band stations in Israel's Negev and Turkey's Kurecik air base, and Israel's new EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine. debkafile's military sources report the test proved to be a key milestone in the development of the US missile shield's Middle East capabilities ahead of a potential war with Iran.